Valium, you gotta luv it
by The Layman
Summary: Max acidentally gets on valium at her party and hilarity ensues. Features mostly Maximum Ride, Fang, The Gasman, and Iggy. Mild peril.
1. preperations

_Fang POV._

"Hey guys," I said to Iggy and Gazzy as I walked into the kitchen, "what's up?"

"We're making brownies!" Gazzy said enthusiastically. Since when did Gazzy cook? I wondered.

"I'm making brownies," Iggy corrected, his hands moving deftly over the various tools and ingredients on the counter in front of him, "Gazzy here is just waiting to lick the spoon when I'm done."

"Max doesn't know yet, does she?" Gazzy asked, licking his lips and eyeing the bowl of brownie batter like a starving vulture on a diet.

Though to be honest, so was I. (What can I say, brownies are to me what chocolate-chip cookies are to Max.)

"Nudge and Angel are with her at the mall dragging her around different clothing, make up, and jewelery stores, she doesn't have a clue." And with any luck she wouldn't know until later, when we were having her birthday celebration. It had been really hard to keep it a secret, especially with The Nudge Channel. I knew she would be the most likely to spill the beans about the party, so I'd given Angel full discretionary powers to keep Nudge quiet. So far it was still working. "I just hope she appreciates all the work we went through to keep it a secret."

"She'd better," Iggy said, now holding the bowl while stirring it on his way to the oven, "because I've been working my butt off in here. Why doesn't Gazzy do anything?" He poured the batter into the pan and put it in the oven.

"I was just about to do something about that." I tossed a walkie-talkie to Gazzy, who caught it with both hands, "I need you to tell me when Max and the girls are coming back."

"Why me!" he whined. "Why can't Total do it? It's not like he can actually put up decorations or anything."

"He told me he was working on something for Max on his own," I said, "and that he wasn't to be disturbed unless it was an absolute emergency." I paused. "His words, not mine. Besides," I looked over at Gazzy, "I really don't think anyone would appreciate it if the food tasted like one of your 'nuclear dissasters'." I raised an eyebrow.

Reluctantly, Gazzy marched to the mearest window and jumped out. A second later I saw him fly up to the roof.

"So how's your present for Max coming along?" Iggy asked after Gazzy left.

"It's coming along great," I told him with mock exitement, "wanna see it?"

"Har, har," he said unemotionally as he began cleaning up the kitchen. "Seriously, what is it?"

"Not telling," I said coyly, "You'll just have to wait for the party like everyone else."  
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	2. Party joint

Around five o'clock Gazzy radioed in and said that he saw the girls heading back. They were all laden with shopping bags, (mostly for Nudge and Angel, I'm sure).

I told Gazzy to get back inside and get ready surprise her (Max) when she came in. We had covered all the windows and all the lights were turned off, so hopefully, they couldn't see a thing inside. Nudge and Angel would probably stall her for a few minutes with something trivial, so we all had to get into our positions.

When she opened the door I turned on the lights and we all shouted "Surprise!"

She decked me.

It wasn't her fault, really. It was my own fault for standing right next to the door when she opened it. (I don't know if you can tell, but she doesn't really like surprises, we all don't. Comes from being on the run for months.)

When I picked myself I saw that she was crying. I thought, 'Oh crap, what did I do', when she suddenly grabbed me and hugged me for all she she was worth.

"Thank you," she said as she gave me a peck on the cheek.

"Come on, you've gotten us through more hell than anyone has a right to go through, you deserve to get something out of it," I said, trying to pry her off of me. "Now could you please let me go? You're crushing my rib cage."

"Sorry," she said, letting go.

"Hey, who wants food?" Iggy asked after about a minute of awkward silence. Everyone cheered as they rushed into the kitchen, ready to devour whatever food they could get their hands on.

When we were all sitting at the table Iggy brought out the plate of brownies and a couple large bowls of popcorn. As he brought them in I could see Gazzy eyeing him mischievously, looking like he was going to trip him or something. Fortunately, he had the good sense not to do anything to Iggy before he brought to food to the table.

"Thanks, Ig," Max said, eyeing the food hungrily, "did you do all this yourself?"

"Actually, I had a little help," he said, giving Gazzy a high five. Then he turned back to Max. "But that's not all, wait right here," he said went over to the fridge. He opened it up and took out another brownie. It was about a third of the size of the big pan, and about a quarter inch thicker than the other ones. As he brought it to the table I saw that there were white chocolate chips in it, and a pair of wings made out of powdered sugar on top. (How he pulled those off will forever be a mystery.)

"Happy Birthday, Max," he said as he put it down in front of her.

"Thanks, Iggy," she said, hugging him. She then sat back down and proceeded to devour Iggy's brownie like the world was ending tomorrow. We all followed suite and in two minutes there was nothing left on the table but empty plates and bowls.

We then migrated to the living room, reminding each other about all the good times (as well as the bad ones) that we'd had with Max. After about an hour Max said, "I want to open presents now!" raising her arms in the air as she did.

"Ooh, I'll be right back," Angel said excitedly, presumably hurrying off to get her gift for Max.

"She's _sooo_ cute," Max said, laying back on the couch, "isn't she, Fangypoo?"

FANGYPOO!?!? Well, it was her birthday, I guess I could let this one slide.

"Come to think of it," Total mused, "I'd better go get my gift too," and he darted after Angel.

"OK," I said slowly. "While we're waiting for those two, I guess I might as well give you mine," I reached behind a pillow on the couch (the other couch) and took out a heart shaped package I had hidden there early. I handed it to her, "Happy Birthday."

"Awwwww, thank you Fangy!" Ok, something was wrong. Not "guns 'n blood" wrong, but normally even Nudge isn't this girlie. Anyway, she unwrapped my gift and gasped. I'd gotten her a heart-shaped picture frame. Inside was a picture of her I'd found on the Internet. I'd ran it through Photo-shop, putting in some pink hearts and adding the bloom effect. On the frame was written "To Max My Girlfriend".

"Hope you like it," I said simply.

"Oh, I love it," she said, sounding like she was going to break into tears again. Then she stood up and put her arms around me, "And I love you." She then planted a big, wet, sloppy kiss right on my lips.

Now she and I have only kissed a few times in all the time we've know each other, but this was different. It was like she only vaguely knew what she doing, like she was drunk or something.

A minute later she pulled away, leaving me speechless with an expression of surprise and confusion on my face. She just had a huge goofy grin on hers.

"I love you _thiiiiiis_ much," she said dreamily, spreading her arms out unevenly and flopping back down on the couch.

OK, know I definitely knew something was wrong; she'd only ever said anything like that one other time, when Dr. Martinez had given her Valium to calm her down during an operation.

Oh my God, Max was on Valium, or something like it.

"This water bottle is just _soooo_ amazing," she said, staring at the water bottle in her hands.  
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_Author's note; Like it so far? Well, more hilarity ensues next time, in chapter three!_


	3. Crazy hazy purple trip

"Max," I said, shaking her a little bit to get her attention, "are you OK?"

"Oh I'm _fiiiiine_, my knight," she said, a dreamy quality still in her voice. She flicked the collar of my shirt, "my dark knight." She suddenly broke out giggling. "Oh my God," she exclaimed, "you're Batman! I'm in love with Batman!"

This was bad. Either invisible aliens had come down to earth and pumped her full of GABA inhibitors (I saw it on a TV show once) in the last hour, or she was on Valium, or some similar drug.

Guess which theory I went with.

"Gazzy, Iggy, into the kitchen, now!" I said the way Max does when she's about to drill something into one of our heads. "Nudge, stay with Max and make sure she doesn't do anything crazy or dangerous." She nodded.

Once all us boys were in the kitchen I got right down to business.

"Which one of you guys drugged Max?" I asked blunty leaning hard on the table. "You are the two most likely suspects, so one of you'd better fess up." I glared at Gazzy and added "And I'm not happy right now" for Iggy's benefit.

"I don't know why you think I did it. The way you hear Max talk about it, it's a wonder they even use it."

"So you have really don't know how it happened?" I asked incredulously.

"Of course not," he scoffed, "the only person even remotely devious enough to do this is..." He sudden stopped, his milky grey eyes taking on a look of supreme dread. I knew what he thinking because the exact same thought had just occured to me as well. With perfect synchronization, we both turned and galred directly at Gazzy.

He was looking extremely guilty.

"Gazzy..." I said slowly. He cracked imediately.

"I was mad, OK?"

"At who?" I pressed. "Max?"

"No, Iggy."

"ME?!" Iggy sounded shocked.

"Yeah. Remember earlier, when Fang made me go be lookout?"

"Of course I remeber, but the shouldn't you be mad at Fang from sticking you up there?"

"I am, but not as I am at you. You didn't even try to convince him to let me stay. In fact, you might as well have pushed me out yourself." I deal with this one later....

"Gazzy, as interesting as this is, why is Max acting like she's drugged?"

"I spiked the big brownie with Valium."

"Where on earth did you get your hands on Valium?" I said. Then I thought about it, "Never mind, I don't want to know. The question is, why did you do it?"

He looked confused when he saw we didn't understand his reasoning, "I thought Iggy was going to eat it."

"Gazzy," Iggy said, talking very slowly, "you knew that brownie was for Max, I only told you about a million times."

"I forgot."

"Gazzy!" I shouted. "How long is she going to be like this?" He winced.

"Maybe until morning?" He said uncertainly.

Good grief.

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I walked back into the living room to see how Max was doing when I was almost decapitated.

"Nudge," I asked Nudge, who was at the other end of the room, "why is Max spinning around like that?"

Nudge just shrugged.

"Silly Fangy," she said as she slumped into my arms, "it's because I'm a helicopter!"

"You're a helicopter?" I asked.

"I fly, don't I?" she asked, confused that I would even asked such a question. "And helicopters fly. So I must be a helicopter."

"Max," I said, straining to be patient with her in this state, "you're not a helicopter." She looked crestfallen, but perked up again almost immediately. "And you're not an airplane either," I said before she could say anything, "even though you do have wings."

"Get out! I have wings!?" Lord, give me strength....

"Yes, you do. In fact, we all have wings."

Experimentally, she unfolded her wings and looked behind her back.

"Wow, I really do have wings." She flapped them excitedly, knocking down a few pictures and one chair in doing so.

"Why don't you try that outside?" I said as I hurriedly ushering her towards the door.

"_Ooooooh_, really? That would be _sooooo_ cool!"

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Once we were outside she again tried use her newly discovered wings.

"Fangy, watch this one!" she called. I had since deposited my sorry butt in one of the lawn chairs that were around the cabin, watching her attempt to fly. She actually lifted off the ground a few times, but she'd always been reacquainted with it a few seconds later.

"Max," I sighed, "why don't you give this up before you get hurt or something?"

"No!" she whined, stomping the ground for added effect. "I am going to fly, even if it kills me!"

"That's what I'm afraid of," I muttered, rubbing my temples.

She gave me puppy dog eyes. "Will you help me, please?" she asked in that way that Angel does when she's extorting us.

"With flying?"

"Yeah, I need you to toss me up in the air." OK, am I the only one who sees how stupid this is getting?

Apparently.

"I don't think so," I said incredulously.

"_Pleeeeeeease!_" she pleaded. "I'll be your best friend!"

"I said no. Besides, you already are my girlfriend." She got a sly glint in her eyes when she heard this.

"You'd help me if you really loved me."

"Oh-nay!" This was starting to get really old.

"Then I guess I'll have to do it by myself," she said, suddenly sprinting for the cliff.

Oh Crap.

"Max, wait!" I yelled as I chased after her. Why oh why did this house have to be next to a cliff.

I was about twenty-five feet away from her when she took a flying leap right off the edge of the cliff, idiotically tucking her wings in. I jumped over the cliff myself, opening my own wings and pushing as hard as could to close the distance between us.

I finally caught her and swooped upwards, narrowly missing the jagged rocks at the bottom. (Seriously, why do cliffs always have to have dangerous rocks at the bottom all the time?) On the way back up she just wrapped her arm around my neck and stared dreamily into my eyes.

"I knew you'd save me," she said in a little baby voice.

"And you should be incredibly grateful for that too," I said as I landed next to the house. I mean, what were you thinking?! You could have been bashed against the rocks on the way down, or you could have landed right on the rocks at the bottom and been skewered, or even--Ow!" I felt a sharp in my right wing, but it went away almost immediately.

I looked down at my to see if something had happened to it when dived after Maximum Acid Trip here. Nothing seem out of place, and it didn't hurt when I moved it, but I did notice a shining black feather twirling in her hands.

"Max, is that my feather?"

"Yes," she said resolutely, "and I'm keeping it." She stuck it in her hair above her left ear. "Don't I look gorgeous?" she asked in a prissy sounding voice and striking a pose. Actually, I should say "trying" to strike a pose, because all she did was fall out of my arms from all the squirming.

I never knew Valium could be so dangerous. (Flock PSA; Don't do drugs. You might end up jumping off a cliff, and you DON'T have wings to keep you from falling.)

"Isn't grass great?" she asked from the ground, opening and closing her arms again and again.

"Max, what on earth are you doing?" Oops, sorry about the pun.

"Makin' a snow angel."

"But there isn't any snow."

"HEADS UP!" I heard from the other side of the house. I quickly looked up to see a small, roundish object flying towards me from over the top of the house. Immediately I was in the air, well out of range of the probable grenade.

Max, on the other hand, wasn't.

It landed about a foot from her head, made five quick beeps, and then....

Psssssssssssssssssssh!

In seconds Max was enveloped in a sickly brown, yellow smoke. It lingered for about a minute before a slight wind picked up and blew it away. When the smoke cleared I saw that Max was lying on the ground, unmoving.  
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_Author's Note; Ooooooh, suspense! How will it all turn out? Tune into the final chapter, premiering soon!_


	4. Crash

_Hey everyone, last chapter! Hope you enjoy it._

"Max!" I shouted as I landed next to her, rapidly checking to see if she was still alright. "Max, come on, wake up!" I belatedly realized that if there wre still traces of that gas in the air I would probably end up on the ground right next to her. But since I was screwed anyway, I continued to call her name in an attempt to wake her up.

Eventually I picked her up and carried her in the house. Inside Nudge and Angel were sitting on the couch, and Nudge was explaining what had been happening to Angel. They both gasped when they saw me carrying in Max's limp form.

"Fang, what hapened?" Nudge asked, worry and anxiety seeping into her voice.

"Max got hit with a gas grenade," I said.

"Is she alright?" Angel asked.

"I don't know," I said as I layed Max down on the other couch, "but I know two people who would." I turned to the girl, "Stay here and keep an eye on Max, I'm going to find Gazzy and Iggy."

"To see if they can help?"

"No, to give them a piece of my mind."

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I found Gazzy and Iggy up in their room, fiddling with some contraption or other. Probably explosive.

"All right," I said as I stormed into their room, "you two had better spill fast, because I have had it up to here with your antics."

"Calm down, man," Iggy said, "what are you talking about?"

"What do you mean what am I talking about? Max is unconscious down on the sofa, and I know you guys have something to do with it."

"You mean it worked?" the Gasman asked. "Hey Iggy," he said excitedly, "It worked!" They high-fived.

"Guys...."

"We finally perfected our gas grenade!"

"What do mean 'perfected'?" I asked uncertainly.

"Well, for the longest time we couldn't get the mixture for the knock-out gas," Iggy explained.

"But then we had huge stroke of genius by yours truly," Gazzy bragged. "Remember that casserole Max tried to make that one time?"

"I thought we agreed never to talk about that again?" I asked. For those of you who don't know, about two weeks ago Max had tried to make a casserole for our dinner. Needless to say, at the end of it all, she's still Max. The pizza, however, was primo.

"Well, we laced it with some chloroform, ground it up, and now we have the perfect knock-out gas!"

"Get to the point," I said impatiently.

"Gazzy felt really bad about what he did to Max," Iggy answered. Gazzy was beginning to look embarrassed at this point, "so he figured we ought to sedate her before she went and did something really stupid."

Too late for that, I thought wryly.

"Anyway, now she should sleep off all the Valium and be right as rain in the morning."

"Except for the headache," Gazzy added.

"Gazzy," I said, "you're off the hook." He let out a sigh of relief at this. "We'll deal with your punishment later."

"What!" he screeched. "I though you said I was off the hook."

"You are," I said with a mischievous grin, "my hook. I doubt Max will be as forgiving."

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After leaving Gazzy in mortal petrification, I headed back downstairs to look after Max until she woke up. Sure enough, she woke up at 7:30 AM the next day.

"Morning, sleepyhead," I said as she blinked back into consciousness.

"What happened?" she asked groggily. I thought for a minute.

"Let's just stay that, for now, you partied like it's 1965." She looked at me skeptically. "I tell you later. Right now, I have something to give you." I reached behind another pillow and pulled out the picture frame I'd given her earlier. I figured she'd appreciate it a little bit more with a clear head.

"Pink hearts, are you serious? Why would you even consider thinking that I liked pink! You've know me practiacally all my life, why would you even think for a nanosecond that I would like--"

"It's good to have you back, Max," I said, and leaned forward to kiss her. Our lips met, and she kissed me back. Not a wet, slobbery kiss like before, but a real one. Like all the others we've shared. After about a minute I pulled away, leaving her slightly out of breath. "Part deux."

"So, um," she stammered, "what did you mean by 'It's good to have you back'?"

Ohhhhhh boy. This was going to be interesting.

"Well, you were kind of high on Valium last night, from the brownie you ate."

"WHAT!?" she screamed as she jumped to her feet.

"Yeah, the Gasman laced the brownie as a prank for Iggy."

"By making me all tipsy?! Oh, when I get through with him he will so understand the meaning of pain," she said as she marched angerly up the stairs to Gazzy's room. A minute later her scream "GAZZY!" followed in turn by him screaming "AHHHHH! DON'T KILL ME!".

About two seconds I saw Gazzy barreling down the stairs, followed closely by an enfuriated Max, all the while shouting, "...and if you think that this is even remotely funny than you've got another thing coming, mister! I'm going to tear you up so many ways till Tuesday that it'll take them thirty years just to find all the pieces! And if I even smell Valium in this house again..." Well, you get the general idea.

As I watched her chase him out the front door I looked at the picture I'd given her again, thinking about everything that happen in the last twenty-four hours.

Yep, life as normal for us in the Flock.  
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_Author's Note; Hey there, Layman speaking! Well, that's all for now, folks! I hope you all enjoyed this little tale about Max on Valium, (again), from Fang's POV. Also, thanks to all the amazing reviewers. This has become my most popular story to date, so thank you all! And just because the story has ended doesn't mean the reviews should stop flowing. In fact, if any of your friends enjoy a good Max Ride yarn with equal parts humor and Fax (3-1 respectively) then tell them to swing by my profile and check this story out._

_Also, please read and review "Angel's Story". I worked really hard on that and nobody took the time to read it. *sniffs*. OK, enough of the guilt trip, see you guys next time._


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